


left in the snow (freezing without you)

by xadia



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Angst, a smidge of underage drinking, but the other half and the other is me waxing poetic about how much I love girls, half of this is a getting together fic, inspired by httyd 2, it's sad raydia hours and i'm a sad lesbian so here's this, raydia rights!, whatever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 10:27:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19374853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xadia/pseuds/xadia
Summary: What do you do when the love of your life betrays you in war and leaves you? Drink your sorrows away, of course. Or at least that's what Claudia does, anyways.





	left in the snow (freezing without you)

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a year ago and completely forgot about it so have some gay and enjoy

Claudia had been exhausted. She was a prodigy, the King’s magician, a powerful dark mage. There were always expectations to meet, burdens to lift, titles to carry, and duties to finish. Days after days of work and performing and proving herself to the public and her king had proved to be more than she could handle without a crutch.

 

She had been tired, a little ragged, and desperate for a break. The moon had been suspended, glittering, perfectly in the center of the sky, and Claudia had decided that the middle of the night was the perfect time to sneak out and go to the local tavern. It was a shady place with three broken windows and a sagging roof, but it was home to the best cheap mead in the city.

 

And that’s where she was now, hunched over a scratched wooden counter, blearily counting the grains in the yellowed wood, her hand curled around a flimsy tin cup. She lifted the thin metal to her lips and tilted her head back, closing her eyes to savour the last drops of hearty mead that slid down her throat. The alcohol filled her mouth like stinging honey; sweet and thick with a sour, alcoholic aftertaste that bit against her tongue like the gentlest poison.

 

The cup thumped back onto the counter with a small, metallic thunk, the last dredges of her fifth glass gone. She wasn’t drunk, she was still more than capable of handling herself in a fight. Claudia was allowed to sit back and relax every once in a while, so what if she got a bit tipsy while doing so? No, she definitely wasn’t drunk. Yet.

 

Claudia lifted her head from where she had been fixated on the countertop to find the bartender. Lifting her cup, she met his eyes and nodded to signal she was ready for a refill. Maybe not her smartest decision, but the warmth filling her body in a slow, humming buzz told her that it would be alright. She watched the mead pour from the tankard to the cup, slow and thick, the liquid moving in a vicious, golden wave of honey and alcohol. Sweet and deadly, enchantingly pretty to watch as it swirled from container to container.

 

She wrapped her hands around the thin metal and lifted the drink to her lips again, swallowing more of its liquid warmth. She closed her eyes as the buzz settled deep in her body, loosening her muscles and relaxing her limbs, a pleasant fuzzy haze fringing her usually razor-sharp mind.

 

The door opened again, letting in a draft of the warm breeze, the scent of a spring night carried in the wind. The smell of a full moon, its enticing magic sliding into the room, lingering around Claudia’s senses and twining with her own magic. The moon was calling her, beckoning her dark magic to step out of the lanterns’ light and into the shadows of the night. It was teasing her, flitting around her, flirting with her. The magic of the moon took up an easy dance with her own magic against her will, the steps of their spins and leaps pounding like her beating heart, fast and hard and unrelenting.

 

The door closed, shutting out the pale moonlight, and she let out a deep breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Her body relaxed, melted back into the seat she had stiffened in, and she closed her eyes, lifting the cup again to take a large, desperate swallow in a futile attempt to shut thoughts of the moon, its magic, and its elves out of her mind. The last thing she needed to be reminded of was the creatures the moon brought out at night, least of all a certain girl that followed the moon like a lover.

 

The mead was sweet and sharp and forbidden to her. It settled in her body like a warm blanket, something to confuse her senses and disorient her mind. 

 

Claudia bit back a sharp, pained snarl, knowing that the sound would come out as animalistic and hurt as she felt. 

 

She remembered someone sweet, someone sharp and forbidding and loving. Claudia remembered the way her mind had stuttered to a halt the second she saw her, the way that this girl had confused her senses and derailed her mind with every sly grin and knowing gaze. She remembered the way this girl sent warmth racing through her body, spreading like a fire pumping through her beating heart.

 

Claudia remembered the way that the moon shone just to light this girl’s way. The stars glittered just to show off this girl’s intoxicating smirk. She remembered her soft hands and cold steel, her biting knives and tender heart. 

 

Claudia remembered her stare, devoid of emotion and impassive as her homeland’s snowy mountains, the lack of remorse she held in her bright eyes. She remembered the change this girl went through overnight, how her heart showed its true allegiance. Everything for Xadia. All of her for Xadia. Her heart, her soul, her life for Xadia. Her heart was filled only with Xadia’s ice and Xadia’s age-old fury, her motives were only Xadia’s revenge.

 

Claudia remembered the way the girl had left her in the morning frost, striding away with a glowing egg tucked in her satchel. She remembered how the girl had ignored her pleas, how Claudia had offered to leave Katolis and aid Xadia in the war. She hadn’t even trusted Claudia enough to let her help her.

 

She remembered the shame and the fury and the horror and the all-consuming grief.

 

The girl she loved had left her in the biting cold of the winter wind and left without turning back, leaving behind only a trail of footprints that the gentle snow fell. The snow had descended gracefully in a soft powder, landing on her shoulders, her hair, covering her coat and icing her skin. It was achingly soft and gentle but bit and stung her skin wherever it touched her, a mocking reminder of everything that had just left her behind.

 

____

 

Eventually, the winter left. It thawed and gave way to spring, a reluctant shift from bitter ice to warming lands. The air grew thick and scented with blooming greenery, warm and sweet, but Claudia’s heart remained as cold as it had been that day in the icy snow.

 

The springe bore delicate flowers, shivering but strong among the thin layer frost that lay across the land. Petals of magenta, soft and strong, grew in clusters, the color reminding her bitterly of another shade of pink that looked so similar to those petals but just one shade off.

 

It had been years and time had yet to heal her broken heart.

 

It was pathetic, truly. She was a dark mage, a prodigy, a powerful sorceress. Something this inconsequential, this small, this stupid shouldn’t be holding her back like this. But it was, it was holding her down, making everything around her remind her of her face or her hands or her betrayal.

 

Claudia desperately wished to forget that this girl existed while never forgetting a thing about her.

 

__

 

Seasons shifted, iced hearts thawed, years passed, and dragons were birthed.

 

She never forgot that girl.

 

The girl never forgot her.

 

___

 

It was a wholly unremarkable day when it happened. Not many people noticed the second when the universe’s balance shifted back into place, only two souls in a lonely room far up in the rafters of Katolis’s castle.

 

A door creaked open and two widened eyes peaked around it, their normal deadly confidence replaced with apprehensiveness.

 

Four soft footsteps announced her presence, tanned leather padding against the cold stone tile of Lord Viren’s study, the study he had abandoned when he moved in with the king and left it for Claudia to take over.

 

The girl looked around the study to find it empty. Uneasily, she fingered her empty belt, nervously wishing she hadn’t abandoned her weapons before scaling the castle walls to find Claudia’s study. Ignoring her unease, she settled onto the great mahogany desk to wait, her legs loosely dangling off the side of the desk.

 

____

 

Claudia only narrowly avoided crashing face-first into the ajar door when she saw the girl sitting so casually on her desk, looking every inch like she belonged there.

 

It was every one of her cruelest fantasies and wildest nightmares all at once. It was forbidden. This was not allowed to happen, it couldn’t possibly be happening, not when she had left and never looked back once.

 

But she was there, her pink eyes, every inch as bright and beautiful as she remembered, wandering over a shelf of books and curiously roving the room.

 

Claudia barely suppressed the whimper that threatened to escape her lips.

 

The girl’s sharp gaze snapped to Claudia and her expression shifted into something born of shock and awe, apprehensive longing and uncertainties filling her face. She shifted, sliding gracefully off of the polished wood and standing on the stone tiles. The ease of her smooth movements made Claudia’s mouth dry as she recalled every step she had seen that girl take with the same amount of powerful grace.

 

“Claudia,” Rayla said, her voice a lower rasp than she had remembered, a tone that made her spine shiver and lips itch. That voice had haunted Claudia’s dreams and nightmares alike for years, following her every step and shadowing each thought.

 

“I know what you’re going to say, Claudia,” Rayla told her, saying her name again like it was some sort of remedy, like it soothed her, saying it like Claudia’s name had the same effect on her that Rayla’s did on Claudia.

 

“How could I have done this? Stayed away all these years. And why didn't I come back to you? To everything we hav- had?” Rayla shook her head, frustrated.

 

“I couldn’t,” she said, her voice catching. “I couldn’t come back, no matter how much I wanted to. I was blinded by my own ambitions and loyalty, I fell prey to the elves’ brainwashing. I never should’ve left you like that, I never should’ve abandoned you for the elves. But I couldn’t go back, Claudia, I couldn’t. Search parties from Katolis came searching for me and I just, I assumed you had realized that I wasn’t worth your time and had told everyone where I was, where I was going. They hunted me for two years before they finally gave up.”

 

Claudia took a step towards Rayla, her face blank and mind shocked numb. Rayla took a small step back, her expression crumpled and sorrowful.

 

“I know that I left, I abandoned you and I betrayed you when I love- loved you. I thought it was the right thing to do, that you’d be better off without having a hunted assassin at your side and Katolis’s armies tracking you down. I thought that I could leave with the egg and you could go home without an enemy at your side or the brand of a traitor, you could live with your father and your brother and the king, and I could return the egg to Xadia and you could forget I existed. And I was wrong, I know that I was so terribly, horribly wrong and I hurt you and made everything worse and completely irreparable…” 

 

Rayla trailed off as Claudia took another shocked step towards her, taking another small step back of her own. “I was wrong to think you’d be better off without me. I was wrong, I see that, but…” something in her expression broke. “Oh, stop being so stoic, Claudia. Go on, shout, scream, say something!” Rayla cried desperately, her voice thick and wavering with emotion. She took another step back only to bump into the desk, leaving her with nowhere to go but through Claudia.

 

Claudia took a final step forward, their bodies a hair’s breadth from touching. They had both grown in the years that had passed, but Claudia was now taller by an entire hand’s width. She looked down at Rayla, drinking in the sight of those sharp pink eyes staring up at her.

 

Claudia lifted her hand softly, staring down at the girl that had captured all the stars in the sky and stolen her heart more times than she could count. The pads of her fingers lightly traced Rayla’s cheek, her hand cupping her face and tilting her head up to look at her.

 

“Just say something,” Rayla whispered, her voice breaking, her quiet whisper ringing through the silent room. 

 

“You’re as beautiful as the day I lost you,” Claudia breathed, her eyes desperately searching Rayla’s as her heart broke even more. All these years, all this pain, grief, and longing, and Rayla was right here. Right in front of Claudia and safe and free.

 

A hand wove into her hair, tugged her head down, and Claudia complied, feeling her frosted, icy heart melt into a molten mess of liquid gold and honeyed mead the second their lips met.

**Author's Note:**

> raydia rights!
> 
> yes the reconciliation scene is from httyd2 and yes that scene broke my god damn heart. anyways I will die for all kudos and sell my soul for comments so smash those buttons for your local sad lesbian if you enjoyed :)


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